Mere Phantasy Read online

  Now that my stomach had finally calmed enough, I made my way out of my curtained room and found all the young boys running and fighting in the lounge area. The once nice, peaceful, and quiet lounge area.

  Folding my arms, I watched them intently as they played. No one noticed me until I let out an accidental cough and then, like wild dogs sniffing out their prey, they all turned and sprinted over toward me with outstretched arms. “Mother!” they screeched, and I braced myself for another tackling.

  But the tackling never happened. Instead, a loud voice interrupted the boys and brought them to attention. “Oi! Boys, leave her be, why don’t you?”

  Peter stood a few feet away with his feet spread apart in the stance I sadly was recognizing more and more, and I instantly wished I was wearing something else, something not as hideously embarrassing as a nightgown.

  The boys were giddy and excited, and they chattered among themselves, but when Peter cleared his throat, they all stood straight with their hands at their foreheads in salutes. Peter ventured forward and glanced over at me with a glint in his eye.

  “Greetings, boys.” Peter smiled broadly and graced them with a curt nod, their cue to stand down. Letting out excited breaths, they all huddled close together, whispering about who knows what. After a few moments of Peter silently admiring them, he quieted them down. “I thought I told you boys to wake her up nicely.”

  “Oh, but we did, sir.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we sure did.”

  “But she acid puked again!”

  “Almost got us, but we escaped quick, we did, Peter.”

  Raising an eyebrow, Peter came up beside me, looking me up and down with a sly smile on his lips. “Acid puking again? Yeah, that’s normal. Well, the puke part anyway. What’s not normal is that nightgown,” he commented. When I began to protest, I was drowned out by the growing chorus of the boys. Peter snapped, “Oh, boys, shut it up already!” But he was smiling in subtle approval. When he yelled, they got quiet again but watched him with hopeful eyes.

  Peter continued. “Yeah, we’ll have to get you a change of clothes.”

  “Why you—”

  “Now, you all are to go back to the hideaway. Do I make myself clear?” Peter asked in a strong English accent, eyeing them all as they bowed and saluted again. He was having fun with them, completely sidetracked from the fact he’d just dissed me.

  Saluting him again, the boys shouted, “Aye-aye, sir!” And then they were all off, running down the main hallway again, disappearing from our sight in only a few moments.

  I turned my gaze to Peter, and when he saw my expression, his smile instantly dropped.

  “We need to talk,” I growled. “Now.”

  With wide eyes, Peter nodded obediently, then cleared his throat. “Sure thing. But first… Don’t you want to see your boy toy?”

  We arrived at a small door with the curtain open, three fairies bustling around a person on a cot. Zane lay in only his underwear, which made me burn hot with embarrassment, but the fairy nurses placed a blanket over him as they noticed my hesitation.

  He was a real mess. He had blood-soaked bandages all over his body, and his hair was slicked back with more blood and dried saltwater. Neither he nor I had bathed since we were rescued from the Jolly Roger. Heck, I hadn’t showered since the day Peter captured me. I probably smelled like an old mule.

  Anyway, Zane was conscious, and I moved in front of the always-energetic Peter, who just watched us, eyebrows furrowed in thought. I sat next to Zane and felt unbelievably awkward. I barely knew him, and I only remembered him trying to choke an answer out of me about my locket. I still had a bruised shoulder, but I guess I’d forgiven him. Maybe his excuse was being a castaway in a dark prison really screwed him up, because if so, I could relate. I felt scarred by it, too, and I’d only been onboard a few days.

  “Come crawling back, did we?” he asked, his face beet red and sweating. I grabbed a wet washcloth from a nearby blue fairy and laid it across his forehead shakily.

  “No, no. You’re here to rest and get better. I only came to check up on you… I guess.” I cringed. Being social wasn’t one of my best qualities; I just made everything uncomfortable. So when I held out my hand, Zane eyed it warily, making me feel ten times more out of place than before, like I was the bad guy here. But after another second, he seemed to accept my offering of help, relaxing into his pillow and swallowing softly rather than staying stiff as a board like he had a few seconds before.

  “You shouldn’t be taking care of me.” He took a sip of water and then stuck out his tongue in disgust, setting it right back down.

  “No, I shouldn’t.” I agreed.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t even know what got… into me. I deserve whatever’s coming to me.” Zane was looking over a small metal bowl that had been put next to his bed and running his hands over it. His brown eyes moved to my neck, making me self-consciously grab for the chain around it. “I’m glad you got it back.” His eyes lingered there for a second before I stuffed it into the collar of my nightgown.

  “What am I missing here?” Peter questioned, breaking the silence that’d come over the small room.

  I watched Zane for a second, wondering why he was so fascinated with my locket. There was something special about it, and Zane knew.

  I just needed to find out what.

  Ignoring Peter, I cleared my throat and flapped my hand at Zane’s comment. “I’ll just have to get you back for it,” I teased lightly, but it came out sounding forced, which it was.

  My heart was pounding in my chest from the confrontation. I still didn’t trust him fully enough, due to his nice act before pushing me around to get the necklace the first time. He could be crying wolf just as easily the same way now. But thankfully, he couldn’t do much to me even if he wanted to. The healing process was obviously taking its time with his wounds, which were all over, some still bleeding. And either he needed a bath or I needed to back up, because the smell was making me want to gag. So I highly doubted he’d be attacking me anytime soon.

  “Maybe we could…” He tried to shrug off the situation again, only ending in hurting himself more. I was beginning to realize his personality was cool, collected, and nonchalant. Or at least he tried to make it seem that way. Through another grimace, he asked, “Start over?”

  Glancing back at Peter, who seemed a bit puzzled by everything but didn’t say anything about it, I nodded. I had a somewhat good, somewhat uneasy feeling about this guy. And no matter if he was good or bad, I had to keep myself on his good side so I could actually find out why he wanted my necklace so much. What was so important about it?

  “Yeah, we could do that.” I nodded. “I’m Lacey.”

  “Zane.” His chin moved curtly.

  I offered him a small smile before standing up off of his bed to give him more room.

  “You know, you survived pretty well back there on Hook’s ship. I mean, for a girl,” Peter said after clearing his throat.

  “It really took a lot for you to say that, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it did.” He shook his head before peering over to Zane. “Rest up, chump. We’ll talk when you’re better.”

  Instead of answering, Zane watched him steadily, only to nod and go back to staring at the ceiling as fairies rushed in to go back to work on him.

  Peter followed me upside down in the air with his arms behind his head. “Weird guy.” He shook his head, then looked at me. “How’d you meet again?”

  Something in the back of my mind told me not to say anything about Zane and my necklace and my doubts about its origin, so I just pursed my lips and focused on walking down the hall. “Hook had him down there in the hull, too. He threatened to hurt him.”

  “Big surprise.” Peter snorted, getting a small laugh out of me. His blue eyes watched as we walked, though I pretended not to notice. He continued, clearing his throat. “So…” he drawled. “Got any more questions for me?”

  Instantly, I whirled on him. �
�Oh, oh, oh. You have no idea.”

  For the first time that I’d seen, Peter looked a little scared. Inwardly, I gloated. Good, I thought. He deserves to be afraid of me. I might not have been very intimidating (not at all), and maybe I wasn’t the smartest when it came to what was going on around me (who would be?), but I knew I was good at one thing—getting what I wanted (most of the time). So this was going to be a piece of cake.

  If he fessed up.

  After claiming he wanted to go outside and finding the fairy who took my clothes (or what was left of them), I changed out of the hideous nightgown and then let Peter lead me down a series of hallways and out of the fairy hospital. Stubbornly, he stayed absolutely silent. I was getting more annoyed every second we walked in the quiet, no answers being given and time being wasted. But thankfully, the second we appeared out from underground and into the fresh air again, some of that anger melted away. This forest just had that kind of power over me. And after being on the ship in such terrible conditions, I was more than grateful to be back in its cleansing midst.

  The hospital’s pine tree opened up into the dense forest surrounding it, unlike Peter’s hideout, so when Peter asked if we could go somewhere more open, I was more than happy to oblige. There was something strange about this part of the forest, something that made my stomach tingle with apprehension. It was as if a dark presence lurked somewhere in the woods. So I practically ran after Peter as he led us toward an open meadow a few minutes away.

  Out of breath, both from the scenery in front of me and lack of excursion in my life in general, I stepped up next to Peter at the top of the hill and tried not to throw up again.

  “What’s up with all the puking?” I panted, watching the grassy ground at our feet and swallowing hard in hopes to ride out the most recent wave of nausea. “I feel so sick here.”

  Peter used his hand to block out the brightness of the sun, peering out over the meadow with squinted eyes. “We heal with pixie dust here. The fairy’s natural glow produces it. It’s a universal tool, really. Just has a bit of side effects is all.”

  “How lovely.” I huffed, dropping the top half of my body and letting my arms hang in defeat. Wildflowers popped up randomly among the green, and bees lazily pollinated each one. The sun was high above us in the blue, cloudless sky, but I was only sweaty from the impromptu hike, not the weather. It was a rather perfect temperature for such a terrifying place.

  Neverland. I didn’t know if I’d ever get used to that.

  “Right.” Peter startled me from my thoughts, clapping his hands together. “Let’s get this going.” He smiled encouragingly, but I could only frown, which, when realizing I wasn’t happy, he matched. “Hey, you’re the one who ran away before I could explain anything. I’m not the villain here.”

  Though he had a point, I refused to let him think he had a leg up.

  “You kidnapped me.” I watched him incredulously.

  “And your point is…?”

  “You found my necklace at the bottom of the Chicago River, then trapped me in a freezer.”

  “That’s really not the point here—”

  I pursed my lips. “You then proceeded to fight a large Arma-Armadi—”

  “Aqrabuamelu,” Peter offered.

  “Yeah, whatever. You proceeded to fight that thing in my neighborhood grocery store, swept me away to Quasimodo’s hoarder shop—”

  He interjected, “You have to admit he does have some interesting things in his collection. He had one of the first Bob Dylan records, like, ever.”

  “And then you brought me here to this insane place… through a mirror.”

  Peter’s eyes stretched wide. “Shh, you might hurt Fauna’s feelings. She’s uber sensitive about her titles.”

  I stumbled over my words, shaking my head in disbelief. Did he really have something more to say, even crazier than the crazy things I was bringing up? This was beyond me. “And then I fell off a cliff, only to be captured by pirates.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Now that was actually your fault.”

  I shot back with, “I ran because of what your very exciting friend Lox said.”

  Peter looked confused. “Who? Goldilocks? Oh, right. The ‘dreamier hell’ comment. I promise she means well. She just has…” He bit his lip. “Trust issues.”

  I snorted. “If you call being a b—” Something he said caught me off guard. “Wait, did you say Goldilocks? As in Goldilocks and the Three Bears?”

  “Yeah, that’s her full name,” Peter said. Apparently getting tired of standing, he sat amidst the grass and flowers, running his hands along the petals with a soft look in his eyes.

  I furrowed my brows, trying to decipher just exactly why he was stroking the vegetation, but I honestly couldn’t even offer a coherent answer for myself.

  Peter continued. “She prefers Lox, though. Her family abandoned her a while ago, so it’s a touchy subject.”

  “Ohhh-kay.” Quickly, I sat down right in front of him, my Converse crushing his precious dandelion (a weed, guys), forcing him to look at me. “I need answers, and you’re going to give them to me. No more whimsical replies that don’t make any sense and no more changing the subject,” I demanded, eying him as he went to tug at some grass. Seeing my threat, his hand slid back into his lap slowly, his eyes wide.

  “Fine.” He shrugged, leaning back onto his hands and blinking up at the sky with a content sigh. “What do you need to know?”

  It was almost too rich to comprehend. I’d been in the dark so long that, with this opportunity to really get down to the raw answers, of course I asked the dumbest first question ever. “Is Goldilocks your girlfriend?”

  Peter’s head shot up, blue eyes on me seriously before his Adam’s apple pointed toward the sky and his shoulders shook with his uncontrollable laughter. “Neverland, no!”

  “It’s a valid question.”

  “It’s an awful question.” He brushed under his eyes, composing himself once more, but not wiping that stupid smug smirk off his face.

  “You’re an awful question.” This was hopeless.

  “That was an even worse comeback, Miss Rose.”

  While he went into another bout of chuckles, his last comment got me ready for my second question, which practically dinged like a light bulb in front of my face the moment he said it.

  “Okay, whatever. Why did Hook call me Daughter of Rose?”

  This seemed to get Peter’s attention, so he finally stopped his garbling, face turning serious. “I don’t know. You probably misheard him.”

  My mouthed opened in offense. “Just because I don’t understand a lot in this situation doesn’t mean I’m deaf, Peter.”

  “I never said you were deaf,” Peter quipped, going to pick from a different patch of flowers despite our conversation two moments before.

  I growled in annoyance. It was like talking to… to…

  A child. It was like talking right to a distracted, ADHD-stricken, sugar-rushed child.

  So I was going to have to get on his level.

  “He said a lot of things. In fact, on top of the weird nicknames, he also told me he’d seen me before.”

  Peter froze then, eyes darting to meet mine. “He did?”

  I nodded, leaning back to act as casual as he was. “Mm-hmm. He did.”

  “What else did he say?” Peter pressured, leaving his handful of flowers in their growing spot, which I assumed they were quite thankful for.

  Looking down at a fraying rip in my jeans, I shrugged. “Not much, just that you must’ve kidnapped me from the Mainland for a reason and he was going to use me as bait to bring you to him.”

  Peter’s face distorted in anger. “That dumb d—”

  “Yeah, in fact, he said some people, when they grow up, completely forget about their time here.” I continued, happy as a clam to have this power over him. But I was also afraid of the words coming out of me, the gnawing truth that Peter might confirm everything, despite my wishes. “And that the only
way to get them back to Neverland without them believing is to take them against their will.” I leaned toward him, instantly making him lean away. “So, Peter, why exactly am I here?”

  “I, uh…” He looked around us as if in search of an answer.

  “Did you by chance think”—my voice rose in volume, and I leaned farther and farther toward him—“for one stupid second that I didn’t want to ever come here?”

  “Look, Lace, I—”

  But I wasn’t finished. “Did you assume, just because you needed me, I would want to come back?” I didn’t even believe what I was saying, but I knew it was getting to him, so I went with it as he cowered slightly.

  “Lacey, you don’t understand how dire—”

  “Did you ever think, God forbid, over why I left in the first place and why I wouldn’t want to come back?”

  “Okay, stop!” he spat, making me flinch back to my normal spot as he got up and glared at me. A dirty finger pointed at me accusingly. “You have no idea how big of a role you play here. You don’t get just how important it was for me to find you.”

  “Find me?” I scoffed. “What does that mean?” Frustratingly, Peter went silent, and I felt like strangling him. “You said you’d answer any questions I had! Be a man and just tell me.”

  Evidently, my words hit the wrong nerve, and Peter scowled. “I’m not a man.”

  “Boy, man, whatever.” I covered it up with a flap of my hand, then frowned. “You’re crazy either way.”

  “Whatever? Just, whatever?” Peter leaned forward this time, his nose inches from mine, so livid his tan cheeks blossomed red. “You don’t know how serious this all is, Lacey.”

  Desperate, I threw up my hands, shaking with adrenaline and even a bit of fear. “I would know if you’d just tell me!”

  Jaw tensed, Peter sat back Indian-style and roughly picked up flowers and grass before throwing it back, only going to pull up more, almost like he didn’t realize what he was doing. “You left, okay? You left us all to fend for ourselves and you grew up.” He spat the words like poison. “You forgot everything and disappeared. I looked f-for years in the Mainland, but you were gone. And then, in Chicago, by the magic of Neverland, I saw someone throw a shiny necklace off a bridge into the river.”